Climbing programs teach students to conquer fears, conquer life

Andrew Grossnickle looked up, up, up at the telephone pole that seemed to scrape the sky. They wanted him to do what?

Well, the people with the ropes wanted him to climb up the pole and walk across two wires to the other side. Sure, he was attached to the people with the ropes to prevent a nasty fall, but the pole had to be at least 25 feet in the air. To Andrew, 13, a seventh-grader at John Evans Middle School, it might as well have been 100 feet.

“I’m kinda scared of heights,” he said.

But that’s the idea behind two programs designed to nurture, challenge and help students at John Evans and Adelante Alternative School. The programs, run by the University of Northern Colorado and the city of Greeley’s Youth Initiative, teach climbing to students who are walking the tightrope between graduating with honors and dropping out of school, said Jim Stiehl, professor of sports and exercise science at UNC who runs the John Evans program. The programs also help develop the leadership skills that many of the students have shown.

The students work on indoor climbing walls, and the class climaxes with trips to the UNC ropes course, where Grossnickle was facing his fear, or, in Adelante’s case, to a real rock face in the mountains.

The idea is to give them self-esteem, teach them responsibility and put them through difficult situations, so when they’re faced with their difficult lives, they have the tools to deal with them. UNC is the perfect place for the kids because of the university’s famous outdoors program.

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“If we could do it through chess, we would,” Stiehl said. “But we know the outdoors, and it’s a valuable way to teach them those things.”

If they climb a wall or a rope or a telephone pole to the top, that feels good. If they are belaying a fellow climber, their life is in their hands, so that teaches them responsibility. And if they are tired or terrified or troubled on the ropes, but they work through those fears, it helps them face those feelings in other aspects of their lives.

“The activities we do have an uncertain outcome,” Stiehl said, “and they have to learn how to deal with that.”

Manuel Rodriguez, 13, a seventh-grader at Adelante, wasn’t sure about the climbing walls at first. But now, in his second year, he’s conquered the back wall, a climb that challenges even the most experienced climbers.

“I had to climb upside down on it,” Manuel said of the back wall. “I was a little bit scared, but now it’s started to get fun.”

The instructors like climbing because, unlike basketball or other sports, all the kids start on the same foot.

“In basketball, you’d get some players who are really good and others who have never played,” said Christina Sinclair, an assistant professor of exercise science at UNC. “But usually no one has ever climbed before.”

Magaly Rivera, 14, a seventh-grader at John Evans, tackled the telephone pole as well. She’s the kind of girl who is so shy, she covers her face with the palm of her hand when she’s even the slightest bit embarrassed. She said she was scared a couple of times, but she went up the pole and through the wires with little hesitation.

“I feel brave,” Magaly said once she was on the ground again. “That’s what I kept telling myself as I was up there, that I should be brave.”

Missy Parker, another professor of exercise science who runs the Adelante program, can’t wait to take her kids to the mountains near Drake to climb a real wall. She gets a kick out of their reactions in past years when they start seeing the big walls and huge peaks.

“All these expletives just pour out of their mouths,” Parker said. “Many of them had never seen a rock face before.”

By the end, the kids learn to trust each other as well as adults. They also learn how to get others to trust them. Kristie Gerdes, 14, an eighth-grader at Adelante, thought it was tougher to belay, to be in charge of someone’s life, than to climb a wall.